Posts Tagged ‘blog’
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Blog failing to drive traffic? | Site prebuilder
Posted on May 17th, 2012 by admin
Blog failing to drive traffic?
Submitted by David Mercer on 25 July, 2011 – 12:33
tagged with
strategy
Arguably one of the most important functions of a blog, aside from informing your readership about every little aspect of your life or business, is to drive traffic. A good blog should keep a steadily growing stream of valuable traffic flowing through your site. But what happens when it doesn’t?
Do you have an option for your clients to contact you for FREE using 1300 number and 1800 number signup? 1800 services are a toll free services inside Australia.
Most of the information out there focuses on messages like “Don’t give up”, or “Be interesting and useful”. Ok, great… but what if that just isn’t working? As important as it is to be persistent and useful, it is just as important recognize and understand why certain things aren’t working. Knowing this, you can take action to rectify the problem.
Step 1: Is your blog content of sufficient quality?
The cold hard truth of the matter is that often content is simply not engaging or exciting enough to warrant much attention. What you write might be inspiring to you, but is it inspiring to everyone else? There’s one sure fire way to find out… write a guest blog on another popular blog or site.
If you are able to successfully write a guest blog post for a recognized and popular site, it is a good indication that the content you are creating is of sufficient quality and interesting enough to drive traffic. Actually, not only must your guest post be published, it must also drive conversation and be popular on that site too – if not, it is likely that your writing is of good quality, but the subject matter or style is boring or unengaging.
If you know that your content is useful, interesting, of good quality and is able to hold its own when given the chance, you can take a sigh of relief – every other problem is fixable, with a bit of time and effort.
If you find that your writing is not of sufficient quality – perhaps your grammar is poor or you are not able to clearly get your message across – the you need to seek writing or blogging assistance. After all, there’s no point in wasting your time creating content that no one can read.
Step 2: Is your content being noticed?
Assuming that your content is good, but you’re still are not driving traffic, then you can go ahead and look at how your content is being delivered. If you simply write your blog each day and hope for the best, then most likely you need to get more involved in your niche community. Start commenting on other blogs, help people in forums, and so on.
If you do get out and about online but your traffic volumes are still low, then you need to ensure that you are properly socializing your content. Make it easy for people to tweet about your articles, share them on Facebook and LinkedIn, or any other social platform that is pertinent to your niche audience.
If you are socializing your content properly, as well as establishing authority and making contacts within your community, but your traffic volumes are still low, then the problem is likely one of two things. Either your blog is still too new to really be making an impact on search engines and other big sites, or, you don’t have the right idea about who would want to read your blog.
If your blog or site is less than a year old then I would suggest you keep exploring new ways to drive traffic and keep building up your base of content. If your site is older than a year and you are doing everything mentioned so far, but your traffic is still low then it is likely you haven’t properly understood or researched your niche.
Step 3: Modify your strategy
If you have been blogging regularly for over a year, with great content and you still have not met with any real success, then it is time to reassess who your audience is and what they need in terms of information and content.
Especially in the case of a business blog, you need to think of who your ideal reader is and work out where they hang out online and how they want content delivered to them. It may be that instead of writing pages and pages of content, it is far more effective to make video clips. Instead of talking about your business, it may be far better to write a blog that provides support around your business niche – i.e. talk about how to repair cracks in walls, and not whether you are selling patching trowels at a discount.
Remember that the more imaginative and creative you are in deciding on a content creation and delivery strategy via your blog, the more likely you are to eventually meet with success. Don’t be afraid to try new things.
Step 4: Seek expert advice
If you are at your wit’s end, having tried everything you can think of, then it may be a good idea to seek professional advice . It may cost you a few hundred bucks, but that is a small price to pay in comparison to finally giving up on all the hard work you have put into a blog over the last few years.
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Natyakala Conference 2010- call for
Posted on March 14th, 2012 by admin
New Blog Post: Some historical snippets of Bharatanatyam Part 2 http://t.co/TQZJej8c : 1weekago
New Blog Post: Call for Participation in Vysakhi Nrithyotsav 2012 http://t.co/UTT5evqI : 2weeksago
New Blog Post: Bharathanatyam Rangapravesham Announcement Shamika B. http://t.co/ZcSXwSRr : 2weeksago
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New Blog Post: Natyanjali at Chidambaram 2012 Live telecast http://t.co/tM6UhBkp : 3weeksago
New Blog Post: Vilasini Natyam – Some of us are familiar with the revival of Vilasini Natyam by the Kuchipudi dancer… http://t.co/NbsoCC4j : 1monthago
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21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic (Updated 2012) | SEOmoz
Posted on March 10th, 2012 by admin
WordPress Blog SEO Tutorial (from Yoast)
SEO for Travel Bloggers (but applicable to nearly any type of blog – from Moz)
Don’t let bad press or poor experiences with spammers (spam is not SEO) taint the amazing power and valuable contributions SEO can make to your blog’s traffic and overall success. 20% of the effort and tactics to make your content optimized for search engines will yield 80% of the value possible; embrace it and thousands of visitors seeking exactly what you’ve posted will be the reward.
The perceived value of the services you offer can be increased by chaging the perception of your company – make it appear bigger than it is. 1300 Number – Contact Us are the perfect way of taking your local business to the national stage.
#4 – Use Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to Share Your Posts & Find New Connections
Twitter just topped 465 million registered accounts. Facebook has over 850 million active users. Google+ has nearly 100 million . LinkedIn is over 130 million . Together, these networks are attracting vast amounts of time and interest from Internet users around the world, and those that participate on these services fit into the “content distributors” description above, meaning they’re likely to help spread the word about your blog.
Leveraging these networks to attract traffic requires patience, study, attention to changes by the social sites and consideration in what content to share and how to do it. My advice is to use the following process:
If you haven’t already, register a personal account and a brand account at each of the following – Twitter , Facebook , Google+ and LinkedIn (those links will take you directly to the registration pages for brand pages). For example, my friend Dharmesh has a personal account for Twitter and a brand account for OnStartups (one of his blog projects). He also maintains brand pages on Facebook , LinkedIn and Google+ .
Fill out each of those profiles to the fullest possible extent – use photos, write compelling descriptions and make each one as useful and credible as possible. Research shows that profiles with more information have a significant correlation with more successful accounts (and there’s a lot of common sense here, too, given that spammy profiles frequently feature little to no profile work).
Connect with users on those sites with whom you already share a personal or professional relationships, and start following industry luminaries, influencers and connectors. Services like FollowerWonk and FindPeopleonPlus can be incredible for this:
Start sharing content – your own blog posts, those of peers in your industry who’ve impressed you and anything that you feel has a chance to go “viral” and earn sharing from others.
Interact with the community – use hash tags, searches and those you follow to find interesting conversations and content and jump in! Social networks are amazing environment for building a brand, familiarizing yourself with a topic and the people around it, and earning the trust of others through high quality, authentic participation and sharing
If you consistently employ a strategy of participation, share great stuff and make a positive, memorable impression on those who see your interactions on these sites, your followers and fans will grow and your ability to drive traffic back to your blog by sharing content will be tremendous. For many bloggers, social media is the single largest source of traffic, particularly in the early months after launch, when SEO is a less consistent driver.
#5 – Install Analytics and Pay Attention to the Results
At the very least, I’d recommend most bloggers install Google Analytics (which is free), and watch to see where visits originate, which sources drive quality traffic and what others might be saying about you and your content when they link over. If you want to get more advanced, check out this post on 18 Steps to Successful Metrics and Marketing .
Here’s a screenshot from the analytics of my wife’s travel blog, the Everywhereist :
As you can see, there’s all sorts of great insights to be gleaned by looking at where visits originate, analyzing how they were earned and trying to repeat the successes, focus on the high quality and high traffic sources and put less effort into marketing paths that may not be effective. In this example, it’s pretty clear that Facebook and Twitter are both excellent channels. StumbleUpon sends a lot of traffic, but they don’t stay very long (averaging only 36 seconds vs. the general average of 4 minutes!).
Employing analytics is critical to knowing where you’re succeeding, and where you have more opportunity. Don’t ignore it, or you’ll be doomed to never learn from mistakes or execute on potential.
#6 – Add Graphics, Photos and Illustrations (with link-back licensing)
If you’re someone who can produce graphics, take photos, illustrate or even just create funny doodles in MS Paint, you should leverage that talent on your blog. By uploading and hosting images (or using a third-party service like Flickr to embed your images with licensing requirements on that site), you create another traffic source for yourself via Image Search, and often massively improve the engagement and enjoyment of your visitors.
When using images, I highly recommend creating a way for others to use them on their own sites legally and with permission, but in such a way that benefits you as the content creator. For example, you could have a consistent notice under your images indicating that re-using is fine, but that those who do should link back to this post. You can also post that as a sidebar link, include it in your terms of use, or note it however you think will get the most adoption.
Some people will use your images without linking back, which sucks. However, you can find them by employing the Image Search function of “similar images,” shown below:
Clicking the “similar” link on any given image will show you other images that Google thinks look alike, which can often uncover new sources of traffic. Just reach out and ask if you can get a link, nicely. Much of the time, you’ll not only get your link, but make a valuable contact or new friend, too!
#7 – Conduct Keyword Research While Writing Your Posts
Not surprisingly, a big part of showing up in search engines is targeting the terms and phrases your audience are actually typing into a search engine. It’s hard to know what these words will be unless you do some research, and luckily, there’s a free tool from Google to help called the AdWords Keyword Tool .
Type some words at the top, hit search and AdWords will show you phrases that match the intent and/or terms you’ve employed. There’s lots to play around with here, but watch out in particular for the “match types” options I’ve highlighted below:
When you choose “exact match” AdWords will show you only the quantity of searches estimated for that precise phrase. If you use broad match, they’ll include any search phrases that use related/similar words in a pattern they think could have overlap with your keyword intent (which can get pretty darn broad). “Phrase match” will give you only those phrases that include the word or words in your search – still fairly wide-ranging, but between “exact” and “broad.”
When you’re writing a blog post, keyword research is best utilized for the title and headline of the post. For example, if I wanted to write a post here on Moz about how to generate good ideas for bloggers, I might craft something that uses the phrase “blog post ideas” or “blogging ideas” near the front of my title and headline, as in “Blog Post Ideas for When You’re Truly Stuck,” or “Blogging Ideas that Will Help You Clear Writer’s Block.”
Optimizing a post to target a specific keyword isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds. 80% of the value comes from merely using the phrase effectively in the title of the blog post, and writing high quality content about the subject. If you’re interested in more, read Perfecting Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization (a slightly older resource, but just as relevant today as when it was written).
#8 – Frequently Reference Your Own Posts and Those of Others
The web was not made for static, text-only content! Readers appreciate links, as do other bloggers, site owners and even search engines. When you reference your own material in-context and in a way that’s not manipulative (watch out for over-optimizing by linking to a category, post or page every time a phrase is used – this is almost certainly discounted by search engines and looks terrible to those who want to read your posts), you potentially draw visitors to your other content AND give search engines a nice signal about those previous posts.
Perhaps even more valuable is referencing the content of others. The biblical expression “give and ye shall receive,” perfectly applies on the web. Other site owners will often receive Google Alerts or look through their incoming referrers (as I showed above in tip #5) to see who’s talking about them and what they’re saying. Linking out is a direct line to earning links, social mentions, friendly emails and new relationships with those you reference. In its early days, this tactic was one of the best ways we earned recognition and traffic with the SEOmoz blog and the power continues to this day.
#9 – Participate in Social Sharing Communities Like Reddit + StumbleUpon
The major social networking sites aren’t alone in their power to send traffic to a blog. Social community sites like Reddit (which now receives more than 2 billion! with a “B”! views each month), StumbleUpon , Pinterest , Tumblr , Care2 (for nonprofits and causes), GoodReads (books), Ravelry (knitting), Newsvine (news/politics) and many, many more (Wikipedia maintains a decent, though not comprehensive list here ).
Each of these sites have different rules, formats and ways of participating and sharing content. As with participation in blog or forum communities described above in tactic #2, you need to add value to these communities to see value back. Simply drive-by spamming or leaving your link won’t get you very far, and could even cause a backlash. Instead, learn the ropes, engage authentically and you’ll find that fans, links and traffic can develop.
These communities are also excellent sources of inspiration for posts on your blog. By observing what performs well and earns recognition, you can tailor your content to meet those guidelines and reap the rewards in visits and awareness. My top recommendation for most bloggers is to at least check whether there’s an appropriate subreddit in which you should be participating. Subreddits and their search function can help with that.
#10 – Guest Blog (and Accept the Guest Posts of Others)
When you’re first starting out, it can be tough to convince other bloggers to allow you to post on their sites OR have an audience large enough to inspire others to want to contribute to your site. This is when friends and professional connections are critical. When you don’t have a compelling marketing message, leverage your relationships – find the folks who know you, like you and trust you and ask those who have blog to let you take a shot at authoring something, then ask them to return the favor.
Guest blogging is a fantastic way to spread your brand to new folks who’ve never seen your work before, and it can be useful in earning early links and references back to your site, which will drive direct traffic and help your search rankings (diverse, external links are a key part of how search engines rank sites and pages ). Several recommendations for those who engage in guest blogging:
Find sites that have a relevant audience – it sucks to pour your time into writing a post, only to see it fizzle because the readers weren’t interested. Spend a bit more time researching the posts that succeed on your target site, the makeup of the audience, what types of comments they leave and you’ll earn a much higher return with each post.
Don’t be discouraged if you ask and get a “no” or a “no response.” As your profile grows in your niche, you’ll have more opportunities, requests and an easier time getting a “yes,” so don’t take early rejections too hard and watch out – in many marketing practices, persistence pays, but pestering a blogger to write for them is not one of these (and may get your email address permanently banned from their inbox).
When pitching your guest post make it as easy as possible for the other party. When requesting to post, have a phenomenal piece of writing all set to publish that’s never been shared before and give them the ability to read it. These requests get far more “yes” replies than asking for the chance to write with no evidence of what you’ll contribute. At the very least, make an outline and write a title + snippet.
Likewise, when requesting a contribution, especially from someone with a significant industry profile, asking for a very specific piece of writing is much easier than getting them to write an entire piece from scratch of their own design. You should also present statistics that highlight the value of posting on your site – traffic data, social followers, RSS subscribers, etc. can all be very persuasive to a skeptical writer.
A great tool for frequent guest bloggers is Ann Smarty’s MyBlogGuest , which offers the ability to connect writers with those seeking guest contributions (and the reverse).
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ are also great places to find guest blogging opportunities. In particular, check out the profiles of those you’re connected with to see if they run blogs of their own that might be a good fit. Google’s Blog Search function and Google Reader’s Search are also solid tools for discovery.
#11 – Incorporate Great Design Into Your Site
The power of beautiful, usable, professional design can’t be overstated. When readers look at a blog, the first thing they judge is how it “feels” from a design and UX perspective. Sites that use default templates or have horrifying, 1990′s design will receive less trust, a lower time-on-page, fewer pages per visit and a lower likelihood of being shared. Those that feature stunning design that clearly indicates quality work will experience the reverse – and reap amazing benefits.
These threads – 1 , 2 , 3 and 4 – feature some remarkable blog designs for inspiration
If you’re looking for a designer to help upgrade the quality of your blog, there’s a few resources I recommend:
Dribbble – great for finding high quality professional designers
Forrst – another excellent design profile community
Behance – featuring galleries from a wide range of visual professionals
Sortfolio – an awesome tool to ID designers by region, skill and budget
99 Designs – a controversial site that provides designs on spec via contests (I have mixed feelings on this one, but many people find it useful, particularly for budget-conscious projects)
This is one area where budgeting a couple thousand dollars (if you can afford it) or even a few hundred (if you’re low on cash) can make a big difference in the traffic, sharing and viral-impact of every post you write.
#12 – Interact on Other Blogs’ Comments
As bloggers, we see a lot of comments. Many are spam, only a few add real value, and even fewer are truly fascinating and remarkable. If you can be in this final category consistently, in ways that make a blogger sit up and think “man, I wish that person commented here more often!” you can achieve great things for your own site’s visibility through participation in the comments of other blogs.
Combine the tools presented in #10 (particularly Google Reader / Blog Search ) and #4 (especially FollowerWonk ) for discovery. The feed subscriber counts in Google Reader can be particularly helpful for identifying good blogs for participation. Then apply the principles covered in this post on comment marketing .
Do be conscious of the name you use when commenting and the URL(s) you point back to. Consistency matters, particularly on naming, and linking to internal pages or using a name that’s clearly made for keyword-spamming rather than true conversation will kill your efforts before they begin.
#13 – Participate in Q+A Sites
Every day, thousands of people ask questions on the web. Popular services like Yahoo! Answers , Answers.com , Quora , StackExchange , Formspring and more serve those hungry for information whose web searches couldn’t track down the responses they needed.
The best strategy I’ve seen for engaging on Q+A sites isn’t to answer every question that comes along, but rather, to strategically provide high value to a Q+A community by engaging in those places where:
The question quality is high, and responses thus far have been thin
The question receives high visibility (either by ranking well for search queries, being featured on the site or getting social traffic/referrals). Most of the Q+A sites will show some stats around the traffic of a question
The question is something you can answer in a way that provides remarkable value to anyone who’s curious and drops by
I also find great value in answering a few questions in-depth by producing an actual blog post to tackle them, then linking back. This is also a way I personally find blog post topics – if people are interested in the answer on a Q+A site, chances are good that lots of folks would want to read it on my blog, too!
Just be authentic in your answer, particularly if you’re linking. If you’d like to see some examples, I answer a lot of questions at Quora , frequently include relevant links, but am rarely accused of spamming or link dropping because it’s clearly about providing relevant value, not just getting a link for SEO (links on most user-contributed sites are “nofollow” anyway, meaning they shouldn’t pass search-engine value). There’s a dangerous line to walk here, but if you do so with tact and candor, you can earn a great audience from your participation.
#14 – Enable Subscriptions via Feed + Email (and track them!)
If someone drops by your site, has a good experience and thinks “I should come back here and check this out again when they have more posts,” chances are pretty high (I’d estimate 90%+) that you’ll never see them again. That sucks! It shouldn’t be the case, but we have busy lives and the Internet’s filled with animated gifs of cats.
In order to pull back some of these would-be fans, I highly recommend creating an RSS feed using Feedburner and putting visible buttons on the sidebar, top or bottom of your blog posts encouraging those who enjoy your content to sign up (either via feed, or via email, both of which are popular options).
If you’re using WordPress, there’s some easy plugins for this, too.
Once you’ve set things up, visit every few weeks and check on your subscribers – are they clicking on posts? If so, which ones? Learning what plays well for those who subscribe to your content can help make you a better blogger, and earn more visits from RSS, too.
#15 – Attend and Host Events
Despite the immense power of the web to connect us all regardless of geography, in-person meetings are still remarkably useful for bloggers seeking to grow their traffic and influence. The people you meet and connect with in real-world settings are far more likely to naturally lead to discussions about your blog and ways you can help each other. This yields guest posts, links, tweets, shares, blogroll inclusion and general business development like nothing else.
I’m a big advocate of Lanyrd , an event directory service that connects with your social networks to see who among your contacts will be at which events in which geographies. This can be phenomenally useful for identifying which meetups, conferences or gatherings are worth attending (and who you can carpool with).
The founder of Lanyrd also contributed this great answer on Quora about other search engines/directories for events (which makes me like them even more).
#16 – Use Your Email Connections (and Signature) to Promote Your Blog
As a blogger, you’re likely to be sending a lot of email out to others who use the web and have the power to help spread your work. Make sure you’re not ignoring email as a channel, one-to-one though it may be. When given an opportunity in a conversation that’s relevant, feel free to bring up your blog, a specific post or a topic you’ve written about. I find myself using blogging as a way to scalably answer questions – if I receive the same question many times, I’ll try to make a blog post that answers it so I can simply link to that in the future.
I also like to use my email signature to promote the content I share online. If I was really sharp, I’d do link tracking using a service like Bit.ly so I could see how many clicks email footers really earn. I suspect it’s not high, but it’s also not 0.
#17 – Survey Your Readers
Web surveys are easy to run and often produce high engagement and great topics for conversation. If there’s a subject or discussion that’s particularly contested, or where you suspect showing the distribution of beliefs, usage or opinions can be revealing, check out a tool like SurveyMonkey (they have a small free version) or PollDaddy . Google Docs also offers a survey tool that’s totally free, but not yet great in my view.
#18 – Add Value to a Popular Conversation
Numerous niches in the blogosphere have a few “big sites” where key issues arise, get discussed and spawn conversations on other blogs and sites. Getting into the fray can be a great way to present your point-of-view, earn attention from those interested in the discussion and potentially get links and traffic from the industry leaders as part of the process.
You can see me trying this out with Fred Wilson’s AVC blog last year (an incredibly popular and well-respected blog in the VC world). Fred wrote a post about Marketing that I disagreed with strongly and publicly and a day later, he wrote a follow-up where he included a graphic I made AND a link to my post.
If you’re seeking sources to find these “popular conversations,” Alltop , Topsy , Techmeme (in the tech world) and their sister sites MediaGazer , Memeorandum and WeSmirch , as well as PopURLs can all be useful.
#19 – Aggregate the Best of Your Niche
Bloggers, publishers and site owners of every variety in the web world love and hate to be compared and ranked against one another. It incites endless intrigue, discussion, methodology arguments and competitive behavior – but, it’s amazing for earning attention. When a blogger publishes a list of “the best X” or “the top X” in their field, most everyone who’s ranked highly praises the list, shares it and links to it. Here’s an example from the world of marketing itself:
That’s a screenshot of the AdAge Power 150 , a list that’s been maintained for years in the marketing world and receives an endless amount of discussion by those listed (and not listed). For example, why is SEOmoz’s Twitter score only a “13″ when we have so many more followers, interactions and retweets than many of those with higher scores? Who knows. But I know it’s good for AdAge.
Now, obviously, I would encourage anyone building something like this to be as transparent, accurate and authentic as possible. A high quality resource that lists a “best and brightest” in your niche – be they blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, individual posts, people, conferences or whatever else you can think to rank – is an excellent piece of content for earning traffic and becoming a known quantity in your field.
Oh, and once you do produce it – make sure to let those featured know they’ve been listed. Tweeting at them with a link is a good way to do this, but if you have email addresses, by all means, reach out. It can often be the start of a great relationship!
#20 – Connect Your Web Profiles and Content to Your Blog
Many of you likely have profiles on services like YouTube, Slideshare, Yahoo!, DeviantArt and dozens of other social and Web 1.0 sites. You might be uploading content to Flickr, to Facebook, to Picasa or even something more esoteric like Prezi. Whatever you’re producing on the web and wherever you’re doing it, tie it back to your blog.
Including your blog’s link on your actual profile pages is among the most obvious, but it’s also incredibly valuable. On any service where interaction takes place, those interested in who you are and what you have to share will follow those links, and if they lead back to your blog, they become opportunities for capturing a loyal visitor or earning a share (or both!). But don’t just do this with profiles – do it with content, too! If you’ve created a video for YouTube, make your blog’s URL appear at the start or end of the video. Include it in the description of the video and on the uploading profile’s page. If you’re sharing photos on any of the dozens of photo services, use a watermark or even just some text with your domain name so interested users can find you.
If you’re having trouble finding and updating all those old profiles (or figuring out where you might want to create/share some new ones), KnowEm is a great tool for discovering your own profiles (by searching for your name or pseudonyms you’ve used) and claiming profiles on sites you may not yet have participated in.
I’d also strongly recommend leveraging Google’s relatively new protocol for rel=author. AJ Kohn wrote a great post on how to set it up here , and Yoast has another good one on building it into WordPress sites . The benefit for bloggers who do build large enough audiences to gain Google’s trust is earning your profile photo next to all the content you author – a powerful markup advantage that likely drives extra clicks from the search results and creates great, memorable branding, too.
#21 – Uncover the Links of Your Fellow Bloggers (and Nab ‘em!)
If other blogs in your niche have earned references from sites around the web, there’s a decent chance that they’ll link to you as well. Conducting competitive link research can also show you what content from your competition has performed well and the strategies they may be using to market their work. To uncover these links, you’ll need to use some tools.
OpenSiteExplorer is my favorite, but I’m biased (it’s made by Moz). However, it is free to use – if you create a registered account here, you can get unlimited use of the tool showing up to 1,000 links per page or site in perpetuity.
There are other good tools for link research as well, including Blekko , Majestic , Ahrefs and, I’ve heard that in the near-future, SearchMetrics .
Finding a link is great, but it’s through the exhaustive research of looking through dozens or hundreds that you can identify patterns and strategies. You’re also likely to find a lot of guest blogging opportunities and other chances for outreach. If you maintain a great persona and brand in your niche, your ability to earn these will rise dramatically.
Bonus #22 – Be Consistent and Don’t Give Up
If there’s one piece of advice I wish I could share with every blogger, it’s this:
The above image comes from Everywhereist’s analytics. Geraldine could have given up 18 months into her daily blogging. After all, she was putting in 3-5 hours each day writing content, taking photos, visiting sites, coming up with topics, trying to guest blog and grow her Twitter followers and never doing any SEO (don’t ask, it’s a running joke between us). And then, almost two years after her blog began, and more than 500 posts in, things finally got going. She got some nice guest blogging gigs, had some posts of hers go “hot” in the social sphere, earned mentions on some bigger sites, then got really big press from Time’s Best Blogs of 2011 .
I’d guess there’s hundreds of new bloggers on the web each day who have all the opportunity Geraldine had, but after months (maybe only weeks) of slogging away, they give up.
When I started the SEOmoz blog in 2004, I had some advantages (mostly a good deal of marketing and SEO knowledge), but it was nearly 2 years before the blog could be called anything like a success. Earning traffic isn’t rocket science, but it does take time, perseverance and consistency. Don’t give up. Stick to your schedule. Remember that everyone has a few posts that suck, and it’s only by writing and publishing those sucky posts that you get into the habit necessary to eventually transform your blog into something remarkable.
Good luck and good blogging from all of us at Moz!
Feel free to copy and re-post this content or the graphics, but please do link back (or reference SEOmoz if using the images offline). Thanks!
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The 7 Most Powerful Ways to Drive Sales to Your Website
Posted on September 18th, 2011 by admin
By Rhondalynn Korolak
Want to learn the secrets to driving qualified traffic to your website right now? These proven tips will save you time & will cost you less than $100 per month. Why spend your money on advertising (which is largely untargeted and difficult to measure in terms of ROI) when you can speak directly to customers who are interested in what you do!
Do you have an option for your customers to contact you for FREE using 1300 number and 1800 number signup? 1800 services are a free call inside Australia.
1. Build a List – it’s the MOST valuable asset in your business, it is 75% easier to sell to someone who actually knows/trusts you
* Communicate often and offer valuable info – the offer is always secondary but must be compelling
2. Article/content marketing – turn your Enewsletter and blog content into articles and utilize top directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp
* Syndicate articles, write guest posts in blogs, write for other companies that have ezines relevant to what you do, post to Facebook, advertise links in Twitter
3. Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business – great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN
* Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals – a collection of blog posts on a particular subject that are posted together on on blog – called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted. This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is a major factors when it comes to ranking high on search engines.
4. Forum Marketing – Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature that links back to your website. It’s critical that you use your signature to offer something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?
5. Give something away for free to entice sales and get users to make the all-important first purchase with you. For example, when I offered a free list of Top 7 Ways to Spot and Stop Self Sabotage and an audio CD worth $30 with each book sale, my conversion rate more than tripled.
6. Interviews are another great way to generate targeted traffic and sales. The person who interviews you essentially endorses your product/service to their own database. The sales potential is massive because the interviewer has huge credibility with his/her followers and can sell your product/service better and easier than you can sell yourself.
7. Video Marketing – Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet – did you know 52% of web traffic is now going to these sites and over 70% of online users are watching video? One study suggested that the average Youtube.com visitor spends 27 minutes a day watching online videos.
* Video on your own website allows users to connect with you personally which makes it easier to convert them to purchasers
For more information on the author and her latest book, On The Shoulder of Giants: 33 New Ways to Guide Yourself to Greatness, visit http://www.imagineeringunlimited.com or contact us at info@imagineeringunlimited.com
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The 7 Most Powerful Ways to Drive Sales to Your Website
Posted on September 6th, 2011 by admin
By Rhondalynn Korolak
Want to learn the secrets to driving qualified traffic to your website right now? These proven tips will save you time & will cost you less than $100 per month. Why spend your money on advertising (which is largely untargeted and difficult to measure in terms of ROI) when you can speak directly to customers who are interested in what you do!
Do you have an option for your clients to contact you for FREE using 1300 number and 1800 number signup? 1800 numbers are a toll free services within Australia.
1. Build a List – it’s the MOST valuable asset in your business, it is 75% easier to sell to someone who actually knows/trusts you
* Communicate often and offer valuable info – the offer is always secondary but must be compelling
2. Article/content marketing – turn your Enewsletter and blog content into articles and utilize top directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp
* Syndicate articles, write guest posts in blogs, write for other companies that have ezines relevant to what you do, post to Facebook, advertise links in Twitter
3. Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business – great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN
* Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals – a collection of blog posts on a particular subject that are posted together on on blog – called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted. This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is a major factors when it comes to ranking high on search engines.
4. Forum Marketing – Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature that links back to your website. It’s critical that you use your signature to offer something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?
5. Give something away for free to entice sales and get users to make the all-important first purchase with you. For example, when I offered a free list of Top 7 Ways to Spot and Stop Self Sabotage and an audio CD worth $30 with each book sale, my conversion rate more than tripled.
6. Interviews are another great way to generate targeted traffic and sales. The person who interviews you essentially endorses your product/service to their own database. The sales potential is massive because the interviewer has huge credibility with his/her followers and can sell your product/service better and easier than you can sell yourself.
7. Video Marketing – Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet – did you know 52% of web traffic is now going to these sites and over 70% of online users are watching video? One study suggested that the average Youtube.com visitor spends 27 minutes a day watching online videos.
* Video on your own website allows users to connect with you personally which makes it easier to convert them to purchasers
For more information on the author and her latest book, On The Shoulder of Giants: 33 New Ways to Guide Yourself to Greatness, visit http://www.imagineeringunlimited.com or contact us at info@imagineeringunlimited.com
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The 7 Most Powerful Ways to Drive Sales to Your Website
Posted on September 2nd, 2011 by admin
By Rhondalynn Korolak
Want to learn the secrets to driving qualified traffic to your website right now? These proven tips will save you time & will cost you less than $100 per month. Why spend your money on advertising (which is largely untargeted and difficult to measure in terms of ROI) when you can speak directly to customers who are interested in what you do!
Do you have an option for your to contact you for FREE using 1300 number and 1800 number signup? 1800 services are a free call inside Australia.
1. Build a List – it’s the MOST valuable asset in your business, it is 75% easier to sell to someone who actually knows/trusts you
* Communicate often and offer valuable info – the offer is always secondary but must be compelling
2. Article/content marketing – turn your Enewsletter and blog content into articles and utilize top directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp
* Syndicate articles, write guest posts in blogs, write for other companies that have ezines relevant to what you do, post to Facebook, advertise links in Twitter
3. Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business – great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN
* Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals – a collection of blog posts on a particular subject that are posted together on on blog – called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted. This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is a major factors when it comes to ranking high on search engines.
4. Forum Marketing – Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature that links back to your website. It’s critical that you use your signature to offer something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?
5. Give something away for free to entice sales and get users to make the all-important first purchase with you. For example, when I offered a free list of Top 7 Ways to Spot and Stop Self Sabotage and an audio CD worth $30 with each book sale, my conversion rate more than tripled.
6. Interviews are another great way to generate targeted traffic and sales. The person who interviews you essentially endorses your product/service to their own database. The sales potential is massive because the interviewer has huge credibility with his/her followers and can sell your product/service better and easier than you can sell yourself.
7. Video Marketing – Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet – did you know 52% of web traffic is now going to these sites and over 70% of online users are watching video? One study suggested that the average Youtube.com visitor spends 27 minutes a day watching online videos.
* Video on your own website allows users to connect with you personally which makes it easier to convert them to purchasers
For more information on the author and her latest book, On The Shoulder of Giants: 33 New Ways to Guide Yourself to Greatness, visit http://www.imagineeringunlimited.com or contact us at info@imagineeringunlimited.com
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The 7 Most Powerful Ways to Drive Sales to Your Website
Posted on August 21st, 2011 by admin
By Rhondalynn Korolak
Want to learn the secrets to driving qualified traffic to your website right now? These proven tips will save you time & will cost you less than $100 per month. Why spend your money on advertising (which is largely untargeted and difficult to measure in terms of ROI) when you can speak directly to customers who are interested in what you do!
Do you have the ability for your to contact you for FREE using 1300 number and 1800 number signup? 1800 numbers are a toll free services within Australia.
1. Build a List – it’s the MOST valuable asset in your business, it is 75% easier to sell to someone who actually knows/trusts you
* Communicate often and offer valuable info – the offer is always secondary but must be compelling
2. Article/content marketing – turn your Enewsletter and blog content into articles and utilize top directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp
* Syndicate articles, write guest posts in blogs, write for other companies that have ezines relevant to what you do, post to Facebook, advertise links in Twitter
3. Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business – great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN
* Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals – a collection of blog posts on a particular subject that are posted together on on blog – called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted. This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is a major factors when it comes to ranking high on search engines.
4. Forum Marketing – Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature that links back to your website. It’s critical that you use your signature to offer something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?
5. Give something away for free to entice sales and get users to make the all-important first purchase with you. For example, when I offered a free list of Top 7 Ways to Spot and Stop Self Sabotage and an audio CD worth $30 with each book sale, my conversion rate more than tripled.
6. Interviews are another great way to generate targeted traffic and sales. The person who interviews you essentially endorses your product/service to their own database. The sales potential is massive because the interviewer has huge credibility with his/her followers and can sell your product/service better and easier than you can sell yourself.
7. Video Marketing – Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet – did you know 52% of web traffic is now going to these sites and over 70% of online users are watching video? One study suggested that the average Youtube.com visitor spends 27 minutes a day watching online videos.
* Video on your own website allows users to connect with you personally which makes it easier to convert them to purchasers
For more information on the author and her latest book, On The Shoulder of Giants: 33 New Ways to Guide Yourself to Greatness, visit http://www.imagineeringunlimited.com or contact us at info@imagineeringunlimited.com
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prevelnimi.jeuneblog.com – Blog Premier blog : Derniers articles
Posted on May 16th, 2011 by admin
Build relationships with your Website visitors by allowing an easy method of contacting you using Click To Call Button.
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How Can a Blogger Improve their SEO ranking? :: Free Tech Support …
Posted on May 7th, 2011 by admin
The perceived value of your company can be increased by chaging the perception of your company – make it appear bigger than it is. 1300 Number – Contact Us are the perfect way of taking your home business to the national stage.
How Can a Blogger Improve their SEO ranking?
[This is a guest submission...]
Perhaps the biggest compliment a blogger can receive is more traffic (an increase in the number of visitors) to their site. It creates a feeling of accomplishment and high credibility. Any blogger would enjoy the reputation of having their opinions and information spread across the Internet, reaching thousands, if not millions of people.
This question (more like a desire) consumes the minds of most bloggers and it’s quite legit. In fact, every time I talk to someone who blogs, the first thing they ask me is “How can I improve my SEO” once they find out I’m an SEO guy.
The answer to this question depends on what subject you blog about, but no matter what your subject is, with better SEO, a blogger can have a greater impact on larger communities (get more traffic to their site.)
So how does a blogger improve their seo ranking?
In this post, I’ve done everything I can to come up with the three most effective ways a blogger can improve their SEO. These three ways are from personal experience and the consistent study of successful bloggers.
Before I go into the three ways, I want to share a little personal philosophy about SEO. I’ve had many discussions (near arguments) with SEO experts that claim SEO is all about mathematics and quantification.
I highly disagree. I think there is more of an art to SEO than a science- and the reason why is because we are humans. Humans read (or watch/hear) the blog posts themselves and if it moves them in ways that are inspirational, informative, and extremely helpful, people will share the posts with others. This is the best way to establish backlinks to your website (and btw, back links are the most effective way to improve your SEO.)
Okay, now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s get down to the three ways you, as a blogger, can improve your SEO ranking:
Transform your titles. Do you know what transformation means? In an artful way, it means to magically change the appearance of something.
To magically change the appearance of your titles, you can move words around, restructure your titles to be in the form of a question, or create a shock value (state something that makes a reader say “What!”)
When you do this, it is imperative to include the keyword phrase you want to optimize for. Do you know what your keyword phrase is each time you create a blog post? It helps to know. It will improve your seo.
For example, I did my research for a keyword phrase to optimize for with this blog post (actually, I’m hoping to get rankings for two keyword phrases.) I found that the term “improve seo ranking” averages 1300 searches per month and the amount of websites competing for the keyword phrase is average. By looking at the numbers, I have assessed that my chances of ranking for this term are pretty good- so the keyword phrase has been included in the title of this post.
Titles need to be catchy… a boring title doesn’t get visits. But to be catchy with the search engines, your title should include your keyword phrase. Spending extra time to do “healthy” keyword research will
provide impressive results for the optimization of your blog.
Answer the questions that are being asked. Let’s think for a moment
what the purpose of a blog is…
Yes, it’s a web log, and it is the more common way to share information about a certain subject.
When you consider the purpose of a blog, it’s good to know that the more helpful you are to the readers/viewers of it, the more value it’s going to create.
What’s a better way to be more helpful than by answering questions?
Don’t try to answer that question
stay with me. A blogger may think they know what questions are being asked for a certain subject, but there are ways to find out if they really are.You can use LinkedIn’s “Answers” social media tool to research the questions being asked about your subject. You can also use “Yahoo! Answers.” How about forums- try a Google search for “[your subject] forums.” You’ll find plenty of discussion topics where people are
looking for an answer to something specific. And if you can provide a helpful answer, share it in your blog post.
If you’re questioning how that can improve SEO rankings, consider this: Google has shared that their search queries are getting more and more specific. Bloggers can assume (with confidence) that these specific search terms are often in the form of questions. People want to know answers to many things- and they are typing these questions into the search engines.
Answer the right questions and you’ll notice your SEO rankings improve.
I promise.
Contribute to the conversation(s). Another thing that makes a blogger feel good is when they receive comments on their posts (preferably nice comments.) This is why most bloggers leave their comment sections open for readers to share what they got out of the post.
When you create a list of blog subjects that are complimentary to yours, you can use Google alerts to inform you of when content is published
about these subjects. You can also subscribe to the blogs that compliment yours in Google reader. It will organize and structure all the blogs you subscribe to.
When you have a large list of complimentary blogs, contribute to the conversations going on within them. Make smart comments that are helpful, supportive, and inquisitive. More viewers of the blog post will notice your contribution and click your link.
And if you don’t believe me, I honestly have this happen to me often. Two weeks ago, I asked a very important question to a blogger that could have included the content in the post. I noticed in my analytics that week that I had hundreds of clicks to my website from that blog post comment. I was a little surprised because I didn’t realize how important my question was to the rest of the community, but it was- the clicks were the proof.
Commenting on other bloggers’ posts can provide a link to your site, and there are debatable discussions of whether this helps your SEO or not. I’m gonna bypass that debate and stick to my point of: contributing to the conversations that compliment your blog subject will create opportunities for your website to be visited by more people who are interested in your subject matter.
This is a creative, social, and artful way to improve SEO rankings for your blog.
Well, you’ve now got some goodies to imrove SEO rankings for your blog. Hopefully you see the results within a few months. If you don’t, I suggest you revisit your keywords and check to see if there are more specific phrases that are less competitive with other websites. Always keep in mind- the right keywords produce the best results!
Happy SEO blogging!
Reid Peterson is an Internet marketing promotion teacher and trainer with a passion to teach creative SEO. He shows people how to do Internet marketing promotion in 5 minutes a day. You can learn more about how Reid does this by visiting his website, growthinharmony.com
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How can I improve my site's visibility in the Internet?I want more …
Posted on April 28th, 2011 by admin
The perceived value of your company can be increased by chaging the perception of your company – make it appear bigger than it is. 1300 Number – Contact Us are the perfect way of taking your home business to the international stage.
make-money-fast-and.html
You have to get the search engines involved, but you won’t get listed by them, automatically. You have to do some work, let them know that you’re there, that you want to be listed, and that you are worthy of being listed.
1) Get your friends to link to your blog, where your blog is relevant.
2) Participate in forums, where your blog is relevant, and include the URL.
3) Comment on other blogs, in relevant comments, and include the URL.
4) Put relevant and useful content in your blog.
5) Some search engines may index your blog using the site feed. Be sure to activate the feed.
6) When you have done all of the above, your blog will have some weight. Submit your blog to the search engines, for indexing.
7) Post frequently, and keep the content of your blog moving.